Dear donors,
Dear donors,
Dear volunteers of Survie-Cameroon Survival Initiative (SCSI),
In my communications of 29 January and 3 February 2021, I informed you of my determination to ensure that all aspects of the SCSI operation would be fully clarified at all levels. The commitment that I made at the time, as the founder of SCSI, was necessary, on the one hand, because of the discrepancy between the amount of donations posted by the collection platforms and the sums transferred to SCSI account, and on the other hand, because of the confusion created by the conclusions of the report by ACDB Consulting, which was given the task of auditing “the discrepancy between the amount posted on the website ( www.cameroonsurvival.org) and the amount made available to SCSI to carry out its field activities.” Indeed, the firm in question had not been able to “formally establish the origin of the discrepancy”, a concern that was the main purpose of its mandate. But it had put forward hypotheses on “plausible explanations, notably that of the implementation of a multi-gateway system or the implementation of an alternative online bank account in place of the official account.” ACDB Consulting had reached its conclusions without consulting the publisher of the software and plugins used on the SCSI site either directly or through the official information posted on its website. Similarly, it had not interviewed the team of IT engineers who created the platform, maintained, and developed it.
In order to get out of the confusion thus created and to shed light on the situation, I called upon the services of Ernst & Young Paris which, after having accepted its mandate, had to withdraw under the circumstances and for the reasons mentioned in my communiqué of 13 February 2021. Indeed, on 5 February 2021, Ernst & Young Paris told us that they were no longer able to carry out the SCSI audit mission following pressure from Cameroon, enjoining them not to meddle in a political matter!
I then decided to form a consortium of the following three consultancy firms: Adequi (Netherlands), HCS Company (Netherlands) and Loop IT Methods (India), to which I gave the task of “...unequivocally establishing the origin of the discrepancy of approximately 330,000 Euros between the figures posted by the online collection platforms and the cumulative amount of money collected by the operators Stripe and PayPal and paid into SCSI bank account”, focusing “on the reliability of SCSI's information and procedures, from the collection platforms to the transfer of the funds to the bank account used by SCSI.”
The Consortium carried out its activities in two main stages. Firstly, two separate audits were conducted in parallel and independently. Adequi and HCS Company critically assessed the work carried out by the IT engineers of SCSI, including the reliability of the website and associated platforms and the appropriateness of the measures taken following the discovery of the discrepancy between the amounts posted on the online platform and the amounts actually collected. In this context, Adequi and HCS Company had exchanges (oral and written) with the IT engineers of SCSI, the technical support manager of the GiveWP software publisher, the internal auditors (written exchanges only) of SCSI as well as the manager of the Association MRC-Europe. Loop IT Methods replicated the entire Cameroonsurvival.org website in order to reproduce the discrepancy exactly, to locate any malfunction and to validate the correction. The Consortium's work consisted, in a second step, of compiling the results of its parallel investigations into a consolidated report.
In accordance with my promise, I am making available on the Cameroonsurvival.org website a complete copy of the consolidated audit report dated 17 April 2021, which was submitted to me by the Consortium. The main conclusions reached by the three firms are set out below, together with a graphical representation illustrating these conclusions.
The Consortium concludes that a computer bug is at the origin of the discrepancy between the figures displayed by the online collection platforms and the cumulative amount of money collected by the operators Stripe and PayPal and paid into SCSI bank account (see in particular pages 3 and 21 of the report).
The bug in question stems from the currency switcher of the GiveWP plugin of the software that built the SCSI site. The bug became apparent in June 2020 when, at the request of donors, the possibility was offered to make online donations in currencies other than the euro, which had previously been the base currency. Since then, 91 donors have been able to make donations in US dollars and British pounds, among other currencies. The problem that caused the computer bug in the currency converter was recognised by the software company, not only in relation to the specific case of SCSI (see paragraph 6.3 of the report) but also as an inherent problem in the software that was experienced by other users. This technical problem inherent in the software was solved by the publisher after two updates completed only on 29 July 2020 (paragraph 6.4.3 of the report), i.e., well after SCSI had used the earlier versions.
The computer bug created difficulties for all donations made in a currency that uses a different decimal separator than the one used in Euros, namely the US dollar and the British pound. This bug affected a total of 91 donations, resulting in a difference of 314,273 (three hundred and fourteen thousand two hundred and seventy-three) Euros between the sums displayed on the internet and the money actually donated by the donors. The exact overview of these donations is presented in Annex 3 to the audit report (see pages 41-43). Specifically, the Consortium writes that the GiveWP plugin used by www.cameroonsurvival.org contained a bug that misinterpreted the “.” (dot) and the “,” (comma) for currencies other than the euro: “The bug in GiveWP is caused by faulty currency conversions. Specifically, in cases where the decimal separator differs from the decimal separator used in Europe (comma). In cases where the currency of the donation uses a dot as a decimal marker, the marker was ignored and the amount that was stored for the calculation of the current status of the donation was multiplied by 100” (paragraph 6.4 of the report). When the original donation amount is recorded in USD, it is converted to another currency by the GiveWP currency converter. The conversion removes the ",". For example: using the following conversion rate (1 USD = 0.86 Euro), 581 USD is converted to 499.66 Euro. The currency converter removes the "," during the conversion. The result is that a donation amount of EUR 49966 is recorded. This conclusion of the Consortium is illustrated by examples of donations from the database stored by GiveWP.
The computer bug in question only affected the amounts posted on the SCSI website. All donations made online were received in full by Stripe and PayPal and fully remitted to SCSI. As a result, no financial loss of any kind was incurred by SCSI or the donors. Extract from the conclusion of the report: “Since the plug-in offloads the actual payment towards external payment providers (Stripe and PayPal) the money is directly transferred into these respective platforms, without the intervention of the Cameroonsurvival.org website itself or of anyone at SCSI or Association MRC-Europe. The conversion bug has no impact on these transferrals, which was confirmed by research done by Loop IT Methods. The actual donation amount ends up in the bank account. The discrepancy is only visible on the Cameroonsurvival website” (page 21 of the report).
Dear donors,
Dear donors,
Dear volunteers of Survie-Cameroon Survival Initiative (SCSI),
Based on the findings of the Consortium's audit, the necessary clarification has now been made on the issue of the discrepancy between the amount of donations posted on the SCSI website and the amounts actually received through PayPal and Stripe. It remains for me, as the founder of SCSI, to present my moral report to the donor community and other stakeholders in due course.
I cannot conclude without once again expressing my gratitude to all the donors, Cameroonians and friends of our people who have responded to our call and thus enabled SCSI to contribute to the surge of solidarity that continues to be called for by the particular times that humanity as a whole is experiencing. My renewed gratitude also goes to all the SCSI volunteers for the exceptional spirit with which they have embodied the SCSI vision, both in the diaspora and in the field in Cameroon. I have a special thought for the team of computer engineers who designed, maintained, and developed the platforms that have made SCSI the success it is. Beyond the material objectives that were largely achieved, the SCSI experience not only demonstrated the sense of solidarity and generosity of our people, but also gave the measure of what we, Cameroonians, can achieve together when we are united around a cause and mobilised behind a legitimate and trustworthy leadership.
Please accept, dear donors and volunteers of the Survie-Cameroon Survival Initiative (SCSI), the renewed expression of my highest consideration.
Professor Maurice KAMTO
" My dear compatriots,
The world is at war against a particularly dangerous pandemic which is not sparing our country. We are not talking about war by fashion. We are indeed plunged into a health war which kills and will probably kill more than a conventional armed conflict with the usual weapons. But this is an even more terrible war with unknown targets and victims « (…) READ THE ENTIRE DECLARATION
